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The
aim of the STARCM is to increase self-reliance, living standards
and quality of life for farming households in fifty Agrarian Reform
Communities (ARCs) in the provinces of Sultan Kudarat, Cotabato,
Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur.
The Project will be implemented over a seven-year
from mid-May 2001 to mid-May of 2008. The Financing Agreement requires
the project Co-Directors to prepare a provisional Global Work Plan
within six months of the start of the project. The Global Work Plan
(GWP) is expected to describe how objectives will be achieved, indicate
the types of activity to be undertaken an provide estimates to the
human, material and financial resources required for the duration
of the project. A final version of the GWP will be presented at the
end of inception phase in May 2002 when baseline surveys ans an initial
round of ARC level planning meetings have been completed.
This provisional GWP is based on review of the project design as purposed
in the final report of the Project Appraisal Mission and was undertaken
by senior national staff and members of the international Technical
Assistance team. The review drew upon common experiences from rural
appraisals in some of the targeted ARCs and visits to foreign assisted
projects operating in Central Mindanao. Useful lessons were drawn
from experience of other projects supported by the European Union
(EU) in the Philippines, notably the Agrarian Reform Support Project
(ARSP) that covers ARCs in the Visayas and Northern Mindanao and also
has DAR as the executing agency.
The layout of this provisional Global Work Plan follows the general
format for project documents as suggested in the EU Project Cycle
Management (PCM) manual of March 2001.
Section 1: introduces the documents
and briefly describes the history of the project and its relationship
to overall policies of the Government of the Philippines (GOP)
and the European Commission (EC).
Section 2: provides
an overview of the project area including an initial analysis
of the stakeholders and the main problems to be addressed by the
project. It includes a summary of the lessons from other rural
development projects that influenced the design and planning of
STARCM.
Section 3: describes
STARCM in terms of the overall objective, the project purpose
and key results or services and benefits to be provided to the
target group of ARCs.
Section 4: contains an overall plan
of activities for each of the four operational components of the
project namely; Institutional Strengthening (IS), Support Infrastructure
(SI); Agricultural Production and Enterprise Development (APED);
and Access to Rural Finance (RF).
Section 5: highlights a number of
assumptions (factors that can not be directly controlled by the
project but are considered likely to affect project implementation)
which, based on an analysis of the current situation, may not
hold true and need to be considered risks.
Section 6: describes
implementation arrangements for the project and includes estimates
of the requirements for physical and non-physical resources. It
summarizes cost estimates per component and according to cost
categories specified in the Financing Agreement.
In the Final section, Section 7: summarizes
proposals to address crosscutting issues that will, on the basis
of experience from other rural development projects, influence
the prospects for sustainability of the benefits derived from
interventions and investments proposed by the STARCM.
Brief History of the Project
The STARCM originates from a proposal prepared
by the DAR, on behalf of the Government of the Philippines, in February
1998. The proposal requested the European Commission to provide financial
and technical assistance to support agrarian reform activities in
Central Mindanao. There was an earlier proposal for the EC supported
Agrarian Reform Support Project to be extended from five provinces
in the Visayas and Northern Mindanao to include ARCs in the provinces
of Central Mindanao. Subsequent discussions involving the EC Delegation
in Manila and DAR resulted in an agreement to propose a new project
rather than expand the ARSP.
The decision to prepare a new project was followed in September 1998
by a formal request from the National Economic Development Authority
(NEDA) for the EC to field a project appraisal mission. The rationale
for the EC agreeing to mobilize an appraisal mission was combination
of a) the economic disadvantage of Central Mindanao compared with
the other parts of the Philippines; b) the success of the ARSP and
other EC supported rural development projects in Mindanao; and c)
the urgent political need for the government to address economic disparities
and demonstrate dividends in the sensitive rural areas of Mindanao
from a peace agreement signed with the MOro national Liberation Front
(MNLF) in September 1996.
The appraisal mission was in the Philippines between June 7 and July
16, 1999 to gather information and prepare a detailed proposal for
consideration by the EC. As s result of visits to the project area
and consultation with representatives of the potential stakeholders,
the mission prepared a proposal for a project to provide support to
the agrarian reform communities in Central Mindanao and recommended
that the EC provide financial and technical assistance. The document
for financing decision was prepared by the programming and Economic
Cooperation Unit of the EC Directorate General for External Relations
in August 1999. It outlined the project much as presented in the final
report of the appraisal mission and was duly approved.
The Financing Agreement (FA) for STARCM was signed by the EC on February
22, 2000 and by the Republic of the Philippines, represented by the
Department of Foreign Affairs, on August 30, 2000. The project will
have a duration of seven years when the contract of services for international
Technical Assistance was signed by Symonds Traders Morgan Ltd. on
may 11, 2001.
The first year of the Project (mid-May 2001 to mid-May 2002) will
be treated as an Inception Phase for general start-up activities,
review of the project design and planning for the implementation phase.
Years two to six will be devoted to field implementation. The last
year will be concerned with impact assessment and a follow-up of arrangements
to ensure the continuity of benefits to the target group after project
completion. |
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